


Snowstorm

by corruptedkid



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-04-03
Packaged: 2018-05-31 02:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6452296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corruptedkid/pseuds/corruptedkid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strange things happen on the search for a strange woman. Also, snow.</p><p>(A story told in the style of Alice Isn't Dead).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snowstorm

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm suddenly addicted to Alice Isn't Dead. Enjoy this thing I wrote :P

“I’m up in New York now.

This is the first time I’ve been on the east coast in a while. Most of the time I’m driving through the west, or crossing the middle of the country. I guess somebody needed shipping in New York all of a sudden.

It’s very hilly here. It feels like every time I descend the slope of one hill, I’m already starting up the next. Scaling the remnants of glaciers. That’s what they are, you know, these drumlins. Teardrop shaped hills carved into the landscape by sheets of ice that melted thousands of years ago. This place has a lot of character.

It’s snowing, for some reason, even though it’s April. I guess you have to deal with a lot of lake effect storms if you live here. I don’t think I could ever live here. Driving through all the slush is hard... It takes more concentration than driving usually does. 

There are more people here, too. More cars. In the west, everything is open space. You have to drive for miles and miles between cities, and then the cities are spread out within themselves. But here everything is close together. How do people breathe? 

I guess they know how to breathe differently. They’re used to it. They’ve spent all their lives here, and this is what they know as ‘normal’. 

Actually, that might not be true. Maybe all the people in this city moved here from Texas and they’re caught up in a strange, cramped world they cannot understand. I don’t know their lives. 

Wait, what city am I even in?”

_The radio crackles. There is a long buzz._

“I’m not stupid. I know how radios work.

I’m speaking into a radio right now and I know how it works. 

Sometimes it plays music, if I want it to. Sometimes it plays music I don’t like. I don’t want it to do that. So I make it play music that I like, or I turn it off. 

Sometimes it plays music I know all the words to, and I can sing along. I like when that happens. It’s like the airwaves are in my favor. 

Sometimes it plays music that reminds me of you. 

I’m not sure if I like when it does that.

Anyway. Radios play music, and that is something I know. I also know that radios are not a conventional method of communication, and I probably seem pretty weird talking into one, considering I am not in a broadcasting station and it’s unlikely that anyone can hear me.

But I don’t care if anyone hears me. I care if _you_ hear me, Alice.

I feel like hearing me is one of those things you’d be able to do. You know? Like how you could always tell the weather for the next day without looking in the paper or checking your phone. Or how you were so good at predicting how movies were going to end. Almost in a creepy way. You could always see the plot twists, even the really insane ones. 

I feel like somewhere, you can hear me.

The only shitty part is that you can’t respond.

Or can you?

Would you, if you could?”

_The radio hums. There is a burst of white noise._

“This snow is annoying. 

Okay, I lied. I actually don’t care much about the snow. But it is a little disconcerting when the sun has just come out, and the clouds are gone, and then it just starts coming down again out of nowhere. 

I lied again.

Sometimes it’s more than disconcerting. Like right now. The winds are blowing huge gusts of white across the highway, and I can’t see anything ahead of me. It’s scary. I hope it lets up soon.

It would suck a whole lot of I died before I found you. Talk about unfulfilled business. I could come back as a ghost and haunt the highways in search of you. Ha ha… 

Isn’t that what I’m doing already?

Sigh. Anyway. 

The wind’s letting up a little. The weather here changes so fast. Or maybe I’m just driving out from under the snow cloud? I don’t know. 

Huh. Weird...

The road looks different now. 

It’s gravel. Before it was black and freshly paved with tar. Did they just ignore this section of road when they were paving it? No, wait. The trees on the sides of the road are different too. They were tall and spindly before, with no leaves on them. Now they’re thick and gnarled and covered with green. All the snow is gone. 

What the hell?

I’m going to keep driving. I’m going to keep driving like I always do, and this will go away.”

_Snap. The radio lets out what sounds like a garbled whisper, followed by a bit of feedback._

“It went away. The snow came back, and I got off the highway, and I’m in Schenectady now. Ske… Skeneck… I give up on pronunciation. 

Apparently there used to be a lot of Native American territory here, before Christopher Columbus came along and stole the country. The things you learn from rest stop brochures. There are still some reservations, but years ago, a good chunk of this state was all native. 

Stupid Christopher Columbus.

I feel like you would like it here. There’s so much to discover, just like there was with you.

Woah. Something just hit me.

What state were you from?

It never came up between us. I’ve been to so many states, shipping packages and looking for you… Did you grow up in one of them? Were you even from America? I think you must have been. It would have come up in conversation if you weren’t.

Or, at least, I think it would have.

There are so many things that I still don’t know about you. I don’t know what state you’re from. I don’t know the name of your former high school. I don’t know the names of your grandparents. What’s that expression they always use to describe the leading lady in dramas? Something about a mystery wrapped in an enigma… The author must have been describing you when they wrote those words.

But real life isn’t like a drama. You may be my mysterious leading lady, but I’m not getting any closure as to who you really are. I need closure.

I did know a lot of things about you. I knew certain things about you that nobody else did. I knew you loved black coffee, but if you drank it after noon it would keep you up at night. I knew what you sounded like when you laughed until you cried. I knew what your footsteps sounded like in comparison to those of others.

I need to stop using the past tense. I _know_ these things. I know you get crabby when you haven’t gotten enough sleep, but you stay up all night on your computer anyway. I know that sometimes you draw pictures of creatures that belong to different worlds. I know that you’re strange and incomprehensible, and that’s just a part of you.

But I never knew how big a part it was. 

I think I know a lot less about you than I thought I did.”

_The radio whines and speaks in the only language it knows. It emits distorted sounds and static._

“I’m out of New York now. It’s still hilly, but I think it’s starting to flatten out. I just entered Pennsylvania.

Gas is cheaper here. That’s cool.

It’s still snowing. It’s not as bad as it was an hour ago… Was it an hour ago? I lose track of time when I’m driving. But you know that already.

The wind still sweeps snow onto the road so I can’t see. It’s still scary. I’m still hoping it’ll go away. But at least I’m headed away from all the lakes. I’m headed south, and the snow will be gone soon.

I saw you on the news again, in Virginia. You’ve been doing quite a lot of state-hopping lately. You were in Michigan just two days ago. I traveled five hundred miles in nine and a half hours just to get to you. But then you were gone again, and somehow, you ended up in Virginia.

God damnit, I can’t see anything in this storm.

I’m going to stop talking. I need to concentrate.

...I’m wiping the moisture off of my windows so I can see better. It isn’t helping much. Now my hands are cold.

It’s funny how snow can look so gray instead of white when it’s blowing around. I wonder why that is. I bet you would know, Alice. Even if there wasn’t actually a reason, you would know.

Oh, what the…

It happened again. The highway is gone. I’m on a dirt road now. The sun is shining, and the dusty trail winds as far as I can see, disappearing over the horizon. The trees are all gone. There is only dust, swirling in the sunlight. 

Why is this happening?

Have I been transported somewhere else?

Weird things always seem to happen to me on the road. I would brush it off, but there are no coincidences in my life. This has something to do with you.

I don’t see anything else I can do except keep driving. The tires of my truck stir up the dirt as I continue down the road. I bet there’s a big cloud of it behind me. It would blow into the windshield of any other drivers, if there were any.

There are no other drivers on this road. 

Even as I keep driving, the end of the road doesn’t seem to get any closer. I’m stuck in one place, even though I’m moving. The landscape here is so flat. It’s so dead.

Wait.

I blinked, and it’s gone. The dirt road is gone. I’m back on the highway in Pennsylvania, and it is snowing.

Always snowing.”

_There is no silence on the radio. There is music, or talking, or at the very least, there is static. Now, there is static._

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re even human. You can’t be. Nobody can be on the news in places so far apart in such a short time. Nobody could know so many unexplained things like you. You can’t be human, Alice.

But what are you, then?

Are you an angel? A demon? Some kind of spirit?

Or something completely unexplained? That would fit you better, I think.

Whatever you are, I never really cared about all the mysteries. They were never a big deal. So what if my wife can predict the weather? More power to her. Now I have a reliable way to plan date nights. So what if Alice has dreams that sometimes come true? Everyone has their quirks!

I never cared about any of it. Now I’m wondering if I should have.

I’m wondering if I’ll ever find you. It certainly seems like you don’t want to be found.

But I don’t care about what you want, god damnit, because I’m not going to give up on this. I’m not going to give up on you. I don’t want the story of us to end with me in some musty room, sipping a cup of some alcoholic beverage I don’t even like as I wonder where you went. I don’t want to be distracted by memories of you if I end up having to move on and find someone else.

I don’t want to have to find someone else.

I’m wondering if I ever meant as much to you as you did to me.”

_The radio plays only the gray rush of static. Popping and crackling, it defies any desire for sound._

“It’s happened again. I was driving down the street in the snow and then suddenly, I wasn’t. Where the street had been, there was a forest. There was no street at all anymore, not even a path. Only trees. I had to stop the truck before I hit one of them. 

I would say I’m getting tired of this happening, but I’m not. It feels like… a clue. Yet another strange happenstance I can connect with you. The only problem is that I can’t decipher what the clue means.

It’s hot where I am now. Or maybe… _When_ I am now? I’m not sure. Wherever and whenever I am, I’m sweating through the back of my shirt. It’s the gray one with the fist design that you like.

I could unbuckle my seatbelt and go outside if I wanted. It’s not like I can drive anywhere. I’m not sure if I have to keep moving to make this go away, or if I should stay here.

I’m going to wait in the truck for a while.

There are birds in the trees, big violet birds I’ve never seen before. They’re singing a song I don’t recognize. There’s something about them that seems odd… but then again, I’m no bird watcher, so they might just be normal birds.

My truck is pretty big. It’s taller than the cherry tree in our yard. But the trees around me make it seem like a truck for ants.

You would have laughed at that.

I’m still waiting in the truck. I’m waiting to return to where I am supposed to be, but I’m also waiting for something I can’t describe. It’s you, of course. 

More than just you. Of course you’re indescribable, but there’s so much more associated with you that I want back. Do you know what I’m saying? Sorry. I’m not as good with words as you are. Like, the feeling of having you curled up next to me, and knowing that you’ll be there when I get home from work, and having you there for me. Those are things I want back.

I miss you.

Oh. The forest is gone. I’m back on the road in Pennsylvania. Oh, shit!

Sorry. That was me starting the truck back up.

Ignore all that sappy stuff I said. I’m tired out from driving. I’m still mad at you, you know. I’m mad at you for disappearing. Don’t forget that.

If I miss you, well, I’ll just have to deal with it. 

God, do I miss you.

Hey...

It’s stopped snowing.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [River's Bridge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6568834) by [Schgain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain)




End file.
